


Sincerely, your family friend

by FBGM



Category: Dear Evan Hansen - Pasek & Paul/Levenson
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Getting Together, M/M, jared gets to yell
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-18
Updated: 2019-06-26
Packaged: 2020-05-13 23:34:25
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 3,669
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19261420
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FBGM/pseuds/FBGM
Summary: Jared writes letters to Evan that he doesn't send





	1. Chapter 1

     “Morning Jared. How have you been this week?” The dark-haired woman smiled as Jared entered the room.

     “I’ve been stellar Beth. How about you?” He flopped onto the soft couch.

     “I’ve been good.” She flipped open a notepad. “Now, did you try out some of the things we talked about last week?”

     “Um,” Jared slumped into the cushions. “I _tried_ to try them.”

     “Jared.” Beth scolded. Jared knew what she was going to say. “I’m here to help you. But,”

     “You can only help me as much as I help myself.” Jared recited. “I know.”

     He’d been in therapy for almost two months. His mother thought it would help his ‘communication issues’. And, as much as he hated to admit his mother was right after throwing such a fit, he actually found it was really helpful to have someone to talk to. Someone who wouldn’t judge him, who could understand why he felt the way he felt, and most importantly, who wouldn’t put up with his shit.

     “Exactly. So, what happened?”

     “Well, today was the first day of school. And I saw Evan and I asked about his summer and stuff. And then I asked how he broke his arm; his arm was in a cast you see.” Jared left out the part where he joked about Evan breaking it from masturbating too much. He figured she didn’t need to know that. Beth nodded and waited for him to continue. “And he said he fell out of a tree and I laughed and then he told me this depressing ass story about how he was laying there for like hours waiting for someone to find him and no one ever came…” Jared trailed off, staring at the ceiling.

     Beth waited a few seconds before prompting him to continue. “Jared?”

     “So anyway,” Jared continued as though he’d never paused. “He’s all ‘you wanna sign my cast?’ And I’m confused because, you know, I’m a dick why would he ask me? So I asked him that and he said ‘well, because we’re friends’, and… he just looked so… I don’t know. Hopeful? Sad? I don’t know, but I couldn’t stand that look so I said… um.”

     “What did you say?”

     “I said, ‘we’re _family_ friends Evan, that’s like, a totally different thing and you know it’.” Jared sighed. “And then he walked away looking all sad. And I felt shitty.”

     Beth sighed and wrote something down.

     “What are you writing?” He asked even though he knew she wouldn’t answer.

     “Jared,” She said seriously. “You have a chronic case of foot in mouth disease.”

     Jared snorted. “Tell me something I don’t know.”

     “The way to remedy this is to _think_ before you speak.”

     “Am I really paying an ungodly amount of money for you to tell me something I could get for free off of a poster in a third-grade classroom?” Jared rolled his eyes. Beth quirked an eyebrow. “Sorry.” Jared mumbled.

     “It seems like an obvious thing, and yet you struggle with it a lot.” She pointed out. “Sometimes, it may be helpful to write about things you feel strongly about. It may help you understand your feelings and be more prepared to talk about them later.”

     “Yeah but that wasn’t me struggling with my feelings. That was just, me being a dick in a casual conversation.” Jared frowned at her.

     “Is that so?” Beth raised her eyebrows. “You don’t think your feelings for Evan were impacting this interaction at all?”

     Jared flushed. He knew Beth knew about his… feelings for Evan, he was the one who told her. But he still felt embarrassed when she brought it up.

     “So what? I’m supposed to write in my diary about my crush? Pass.” Jared gagged.

     “Not exactly.” Beth smiled slightly. “You said Evan writes letters to himself to help with his anxiety, didn’t you?”

     “Yeah. But-“

     “But you don’t need to talk to yourself. Your trouble is with communicating with others. Therefore, you should be writing letters to the people you struggle to communicate with.”

     Jared sat up. “You want me to write a letter _to_ Evan, _about_ how I like him?” He was incredulous.

     “Yes.”

     “You’re crazy.”

     Beth laughed at the expression on his face. “Only, you’re not going to give them to him.” She explained. Jared relaxed slightly. “These letters are just for you. But you need to be completely honest in them. You need to write them as if he would read them and they were your chance to say everything you really wanted to say.”

 

     Jared clenched his fists all the way home. His mother asked how his session was. He didn’t reply.

     He tore up to his room the second they got home, pulled out a blank piece of paper and started writing.

 

**Dear Evan,**

**Looks like you’re not the only one with therapy homework. I guess I’m supposed to write letters to you to help me sort out my feelings and shit so I stop accidentally being a dick to you. So um, sorry I called you a ‘family friend’ today. We’re real friends, I guess.**

**Sincerely,**

**Jared**

     He set his pen down. He certainly didn’t _feel_ any different. Maybe he wasn’t being honest enough.

     He picked the pen up again.

**PS, not I guess. We are real friends.**

     It still wasn’t enough.

**PPS, I wish I would’ve been in the park that day. So you wouldn’t have been alone.**

     He shoved the letter in his desk drawer and climbed into bed.


	2. Chapter 2

     Over the next few weeks the letters continued. It got easier to write them. Some days, Jared found himself itching to get home and write to Evan. He started to find a strange sort of peace in it.

 

**Dear Evan,**

**I know Zoe Murphy is like the love of your life or whatever but do you even know anything about her? Jesus dude.**

**Sincerely,**

**Jared**

**Dear Evan,**

**I’m sorry. Fuck. I’m an asshole. I’m sorry.**

**I do care about you, you know? Well, no I guess you don’t know.**

**I’m sorry.**

**Sincerely,**

**Guess who?**

**PS, i always paid for my own car insurance**

**Dear Evan,**

**You are supremely fucked and I think I just made you feel worse. I’m sorry, you came to me because you were scared and I just piled on. I’ve never been much of a comfort, I guess. I wish I knew how to be.**

**Sincerely,**

**The insanely cold Jared Kleinman**

 

**Dear Evan,**

**We just got into some bad shit huh? Why did I agree to help you with this? This is so stupid. It can only end badly. Fuck. All because you can’t keep it in your pants for Zoe. ~~And I can’t keep it in my~~ This is so dumb.**

**Sincerely,**

**God, I hate that word now.**

**PS, I’m a real shitty friend huh? I mean you’d rather a dead kid you’ve never spoken to have found you that day than me.**

**Dear Evan,**

**You did it. You got Zoe fuckin Murphy. Congrats. That’s cool. I’m happy for you.**

**Sincerely,**

**Jared**

**Dear Evan,**

**Okay fuck it. I’m supposed to be being honest in these right? And you’re never gonna read it so fuck it. I’m not happy for you. Fuck you actually. I cannot believe this worked out so well for you. I mean holy hell, who would’ve thought you of all people would be able to pull this off? And you got your dream girl. Yippee. Well you know what? I did all of this for you. ~~I’m in~~ I like you. A lot. And I did all this fucking shit to help you, to hang out with you because I’m a fucked up idiot who doesn’t know how to just TELL people how I feel! It’s my fault that’s the best part! I could’ve let you tell them the truth. I could’ve let this all die and just ASKED YOU OUT like normal human being. But no. I didn’t know how to do that. So fuck me. And now you’ve got Zoe. And you seem really happy. But she doesn’t even know you. And I’m not just talking about the emails. Does she know the exact right words to say to piss you off even though you never get pissed off? Does she know when to drop a stupid pun to make you laugh when you’re about to have a panic attack? Does she have a billion god damn tree facts memorized because you repeat them but she likes you too much to tell you you already told her that one? Does she know that you get freckles on your nose in the summer? Or that you have a scar on your shoulder from when we were eight and you fell into a rose bush? She probably does huh? Her fingers probably brush over it when she’s kissing you. Fuck. Would she write a thousand fake emails from a dead kid just to spend time with you? Even though the whole time you’re thinking about someone else? Fuck Evan. You’re not just a family friend. You’re my whole god damn world.**

**Sincerely,**

**You know**

 

     Jared shoved his chair back and wiped his eyes. He tossed the letter in the drawer with the others and slammed it, just barely missing his fingers. Sometimes, he felt like they were helping. Other times, they just made him feel worse.

     He thought about what Beth had said at their appointment two days ago. “Think of a nice thing to say and then go say it. Invite him over.”

     “Okay.” Jared, took a breath, picked up his backpack, and headed to school.

 


	3. Chapter 3

     “Hey.”

     Evan barely looked up from his phone. “Hey.”

     “You busy this weekend? My parents are out of town and never touch the liquor cabinet so we can drink whatever we want.”

     “Can’t this weekend.” He finally looked up, eyes scanning the hallway for someone.

     “Okay well, you need some more emails? Maybe we could work on them next-“

     “I think we’re good on the emails right now.”

     “Right.” Jared felt anger bubble inside him. He tried Beth’s technique. Breathe, count to ten before you say anything. He didn’t make it past 3. “You got what you wanted out of it so I guess it’s not that big a deal anymore huh?”

     Evan looked at him now. “What? No. I’m just doing this to-“

     “Help the Murphy’s.” Jared finished, rolling his eyes. “I know. You keep saying that.”

     “Hey Evan.” Zoe joined them, linking her and Evan’s hands and kissing his cheek. Evan blushed bright red. “Hi Jared.”

     “Look at you,” Jared spit. “Helping the Murphy’s.”

     He seethed all the way home, threw open his drawer and pulled out another piece of paper.

 

**Dear Evan,**

**You’re a piece of shit.**

**Sincerely,**

**Jared Kleinman**

**Dear Evan,**

**To elaborate. Zoe is the only thing that matters to you, isn’t she? I know I wasn’t the best friend in the world. But god. I was there, wasn’t I? All I did was help you. But you never cared about any of that. It was always for her. Fuck.**

**Sincerely,**

**Your Family Friend**

**PS, i hate straight guys**

 

     Things only got worse from there. Evan yelled at Alana. Jared confronted Evan, boy had that gone well.

     “What’s that supposed to mean?” Evan yelled.

     “It _means_ ,” Jared ground his teeth. “You should remember who your friends are!”

     “I thought you only talked to me because of your car insurance!” Evan spit.

     Jared heard Beth’s voice in his head. _Communicate. You can still fix this if you tell him the truth. Tell him he is your friend and you’ve always cared about him._

     “So!” Jared yelled instead.

     “So! Maybe you only talk to me, because you don’t have any other friends Jared!”

     Jared recoiled like he’d been slapped. He knew he was going to cry but not here, not in front of Evan.

     “I could tell everyone everything!” He threatened. That was a good way to declare your undying love for someone, right?

     “Why don’t you go ahead and do that?” Evan advanced. Jared had never seen him so mad. “Why don’t you tell everyone that _you_ helped write fake emails pretending to be a kid who killed himself!”

     “Fuck you Evan!” Jared screamed. He wanted to yell more but tears were starting to blur his vision so he stormed off instead, tossing an “Asshole!” over his shoulder and cursing at the way his voice shook.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's a lot of swearing in this one just a heads up

**Dear Evan,**

**Fuck.**

**You.**

**Dear Evan,**

**It was all bullshit bullshit bullshit huh? You never gave a FUCK about me? Or Alana. All you cared about was yourself. I take it all back. I don’t care about you. I hate you. Fuck you Evan Hansen.**

**Sincerely,**

**Go fuck yourself**

**Dear Evan,**

**I don’t hate you. I would pretend I did but what’s the point? Beth says these are for me to work through my feelings and lying doesn’t help that. So I don’t hate you. In fact, I’m still very much in love with you. But I am also unbelievably pissed. And hurt. So fucking hurt. I don’t think we’ll come back from this one. And that’s fine. You’re an asshole and so am I. We should both just fuck off and figure out how to be good people and then make new friends who we actually give a shit about. See ya never.**

**Sincerely,**

**Your only friend**

**Dear Evan,**

**It’s stupid that I’m still upset. Stupid that I was still sort of ~~hoping~~ waiting for an apology. I know I owe you one too but I think you owe me one first. Whatever, I don’t care.**

**I need to get over you anyway. I need to spend time on someone less self-centered and asshole-ish. And someone smarter I mean seriously Evan who just falls out of a**

     Jared’s pen stilled on the paper as something occurred to him.

**You didn’t fall, did you? Fuck.**

 

     Jared shoved the letter in the drawer. He didn’t know for sure that it was true, obviously. But it explained a lot. Why he’d been alone. How expert tree climber Evan, somehow fell out of a very ladder-eque tree. Why he didn’t want to call anyone. Why his story was so detailed.

     Jared’s stomach lurched suddenly. _If_ Evan had tried to kill himself, which he may not have… but _if_ he did… he had done it because, as he had mentioned to Jared countless times, he felt as though no one noticed him. So he jumped out of a tree. And broke his arm. And no one fucking came for him.

    Jared climbed into bed and he did not cry for Evan. Evan was a dick. He didn’t deserve Jared’s sympathy. Besides, crying in the dark doesn’t count. 

 


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is super short but we're almost to the end!

     “Hi Jared.” Heidi smiled at him as she swung open. “I’m guessing you want to talk to Evan?”

     “No.” Jared said quickly. In fact, that was the last thing he wanted. “I just wanted to ask, um, did he… tell you everything?”

     Heidi nodded.

     “And he told the Murphy’s?”

     “Yes.”

     “And… he’s…” Jared hesitated.

     Heidi waited patiently.

     “He’s not gonna like… try to jump off the roof or something?”

     Heidi’s jaw clenched and Jared instantly regretted his word choice. Maybe that wasn’t the most elegant way he could’ve put that.

     “He’s okay. We’re… we’re getting through it." She opened the door a little wider. "Are you sure you don’t want to just-?”

     “No.” Jared stepped back. “Thanks Ms. Hansen.” He tried his best to walk at a reasonable pace back to his car even though his brain was screaming at him to run.

     He yanked his car door open and a flash of movement caught his eye. He looked up. The curtains on Evan’s window fell closed. Jared climbed into his car and sped home.

**Dear Evan,**

**I don’t know why I’m still writing these. They’re supposed to help with my communication problems but I don’t know why I bother if you and I aren’t ever going to communicate again.**

**I went to your house today. To see if you were okay. I wish I hadn’t. I don’t want you getting the false impression that I care about you or anything. I know you saw me. Consider it closure. Now it’s done and over and we can both go back to our shitty lives. Alone.**

     Jared read over the letter, spun around in his chair, and picked up the pen again.

**You could’ve come to me. If it was that bad. You could’ve just talked to me. But then again, maybe you couldn’t have. And maybe that was my fault.**

**Sincerely,**

**Fuck you I’m still in love with you**

 

     Another page in the drawer. Jared turned off his desk lamp and collapsed into bed.


	6. Chapter 6

     Jared woke up the next morning and it was almost the afternoon. He wondered why no one had woken him up until he wandered downstairs and found a note from his mom. She and his dad had gone to their friend’s house for the day and wouldn’t be back until late. Great. Leftover pizza for dinner then.

     He hadn’t even opened the fridge when there was a knock on the door. He groaned and opened it without looking through the peephole first.

     “Oh hell no.” Jared moved to close the door but his guest was faster and slipped inside.

     “Please just listen.” Evan tugged on his shirt.

     Jared walked into the living room. Evan took this as an invitation to follow, which it was not. Jared sat on the couch, looked Evan squarely in the eyes and put his headphones on.

     He couldn’t hear Evan sigh but he watched his shoulders sag. He sat next to Jared on the couch. Jared wasn’t sure what else he could do to make Evan understand that he wasn’t welcome.

     They sat like that for a while, songs started and ended in Jared’s headphones and he heard none of them.

     Finally, Evan reached out (god knows where he got the balls) and tugged Jared’s headphones off. Jared glared at him hard enough to make Evan flinch but he stayed put.

     “Jared.” He said resolutely. “I’m sorry I got carried away with everything and didn’t let you help more with the Connor Project and I’m sorry I got all the attention for it when it was your idea.” He hardly even stuttered.

     In any other situation Jared would have laughed at Evan’s complete lack of understanding. He thought Jared _wanted_ to work on the Connor Project? He thought Jared wanted the _attention_ from it?

     He could tell Evan was starting to get fidgety at his lack of response. Part of him didn’t care but the other part was desperately trying to figure out how he could explain why he was really mad without crying or punching Evan.

     Eventually, he stood up and left the room wordlessly. He stomped up to his room and nearly pulled the drawer all the way out of his desk. The two halves of his brain continued to argue. This time half of him hoped Evan would be gone when he returned and the other half was praying he’d still be there.

     He was. He looked like he was about to start hyperventilating, but he was there.

     Jared slammed the stack of papers onto Evan’s lap. Then, he put his headphones back on and faced the other way. He cranked the volume up so he wouldn’t be able to hear whatever stupid question Evan was about to ask like “what are these?” or “Jared what the hell?”.

     After the third song faded, he heard Evan softly call his name. He didn’t turn around, pretending he still couldn’t hear. Then, Evan tapped his shoulder.

     Jared took a deep breath, slid his headphones off, and turned around to face Evan. He wasn’t even all the way turned around before Evan was kissing him. His brain stumbled over that. _Evan. Evan is kissing you! Do something!_

     So, he kissed Evan right back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> uwu only one more chapter


	7. Chapter 7

     “Wait wait wait,” Jared pulled away. He wasn’t sure when Evan had climbed into his lap. He also wasn’t sure when his hand had ended up under Evan’s shirt. “I’m still mad at you.”

     “Really?” Evan glanced down at the position they were currently in. “Doesn’t seem like it.”

     Jared shoved him off.

     “Okay.” Evan laughed and then made his face serious. “Okay. I’m sorry Jared. I’m sorry I dragged you into this and then stopped paying attention to you. I’m sorry I ditched you for Zoe. I’m sorry I hurt you. I’m sorry about all of it.” He finished. Then, he nudged Jared with his foot. “Your turn.”

     Jared was going to make a sarcastic remark but he knew that wasn’t fair. Evan was right, it was his turn.

     “I’m sorry I treated you like we weren’t really friends. You were my best friend. Hell, you were right, you were my only friend. So I’m sorry for making fun of you all the time. It was only because I didn’t know how to deal with my feelings for you. But it was wrong. And I’m sorry I pressured you into doing to whole thing with the emails. That was shitty.”

     “I forgive you.” Evan smiled. He inched a tiny bit closer. “Are we good now?”

     “Yeah we’re good.”

     “Are we…” Even frowned slightly. “What are we exactly?”

     “Um, well I don’t know which was unclear, the letters declaring my love in between calling you an asshole or the making out but I like you idiot.”

     “No I know.” Evan flushed. “I just meant, um, like are we you know… dating now?”

     “Well, I guess that’s up to you. I’ve already confessed how many times now?” Jared nudged Evan with his foot, smirking slightly. “Your turn.”

     Evan set his face and looked at Jared determinedly. “I um, I like you also.”

     “ _Also_?” Jared snorted. “Who says that?”

     “Shut up!” Evan shoved him but he was smiling too.

     Jared leaned closer to him. “Make me.”

     So Evan did. Pressing his lips to Jared's once more.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!  
> Follow me on tumblr @ michaelmellonn


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